Right of way

Third row of the land cruiser, speeding along a semi-paved road from Majete National Park to our next destination on the lake. The window is horizontal, sliding, and for a moment I opened it up wide and let the air gush in. It slapped me in the face, and it was hard to breath steadily for a moment. It doesn't feel terribly polluted around here, but the thick air holds more than the invisible elements. It holds dust. 

The conversation in the first two rows is churning around Malawian politics. For a moment, the focus is inside the vehicle and not the world that surrounds. I catch snippets: Banda. Corruption. Fines as salaries. 

It's as if we're driving through the countryside, until we stumble upon a pocket of settled earth. Like an aneurysm, small villages and neighborhoods peel off the main road and swell into the distance. There are one-room homes, brick-walled, with roofs of thicket or tin panels. Laundry lines hang low and still, weighed down half way across. 

We pass bicycles and over-stuffed minivans and clusters of people traveling the semi-paved roads as well. The people: carrying rods of sugar cane or a basket or a bundle of twigs or knapsacks. 

For sale, you name it, on the side of the road: potatoes and rice and timber and coal and bricks and tomatoes and raw meat and fried dough and on occasion, on skewers usually held out by children's outstretched hands, roasted mice. 

We pass goats and chickens and little black pigs. A fair trade, I guess, for yesterday's wildlife. 

Have I said enough about the safari? The game drives? Is there that much more to say? Sometimes it takes me a few days to put into words an experience, so maybe I'll say more this coming week. I had resolved to start writing longer posts (a challenge) but I've yet to follow through. A work in progress, on the road again. 

Rebecca